Transport path-aware quality of service for mobile communications

ABSTRACT

Embodiments provide quality of service for media content delivery over capacity-constrained communications links to user devices by exploiting usage models and path awareness. For example, one or more uncongested beams can be identified as preceding one or more congested beams (e.g., by computing a congestion map) along a predicted transport path of a user device moving through a multi-beam satellite communications system. A prediction can be made aps to one or more future requests that are likely to be made by the user device for pre-positionable types of media content, and that are likely to be serviced by one of the subsequent congested beams. When such a request for pre-positionable media content is predicted, embodiments can schedule transmission of at least a portion of the media content over one or more of the preceding uncongested beams for storage local to the user device, thereby pre-positioning the content at the client prior to reaching the congested beam.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. Nonprovisional applicationSer. No. 14/948,002, titled, “TRANSPORT PATH-AWARE QUALITY OF SERVICEFOR MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS,” filed Nov. 20, 2015, which is a is anon-provisional of, and claims priority to U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/114,162, titled, “Time Based Network Load Balancing,”filed Feb. 10, 2015, which is incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

FIELD

Embodiments relate generally to communications systems, and, moreparticularly, to providing quality of service for delivery of mediacontent over capacity-constrained communications links to in-transportterminals by exploiting usage models and path awareness.

BACKGROUND

As usage of the Internet evolves, there has tended to be an increasingprevalence of high-data rate applications, such as streaming video. Theability of communications service providers to serve consumers withdata-intensive content can be limited by variations in capacity anddemand across the communications infrastructure. For example, networkresource demand can spike during peak usage times of day, capacity incertain regions can be impacted by weather (e.g., rain fade, etc.),consumers in certain regions may have access to differentinfrastructures (e.g., fiber, satellite, etc.), and/or the ability tomeet demand can change based on other conditions.

It is becoming more common for users to desire to consume streamingmedia content while in transit (e.g., on mobile devices, like mobilephones, laptop computers, tablet computers, integrated media terminals,or other in-transport terminals; and/or in context of a car, airplane,bus, cruise ship, or other transport craft). Maintaining provision ofcommunications services to mobile terminals can involve handing off theconnection with the content provider network among multiple wirelesslinks (e.g., multiple spot beams or cells), contending with changingconnection quality (e.g., as a terminal changes its position relative tospot beams or cells, to sources of interference, etc.), adapting tochanging network resource supply and/or demand (e.g., user demand in aparticular spot beam coverage area at a particular time, etc.), andother difficulties. These and other attributes of in-transport contentdelivery can frustrate the network operator's ability to maintainquality of service to the mobile terminals, particularly in context ofaircraft and/or other transport craft that tend to travel over arelatively large area of the network in a relatively short time.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Among other things, systems and methods are described for providingquality of service for delivery of media content overcapacity-constrained communications links to in-transport terminals byexploiting usage models and path awareness. Embodiments operate incontext of mobile terminals moving through a communicationsinfrastructure having a number of beams (e.g., or cells, or any othersuitable type of carriers). As the terminal moves through communicationsinfrastructure, it may be serviced over time by beams that are more orless heavily loaded. For example, a lightly loaded beam may beuncongested, so that excess capacity is available above fulfillingcurrent and/or expected bandwidth demands (e.g., with some level ofconfidence); while a heavily loaded beam may be congested, so that itmay be difficult to fulfill bandwidth demands.

Embodiments can identify one or more uncongested beams as preceding oneor more congested beams along a predicted transport path of the terminal(e.g., the terminal is presently serviced by an uncongested beam, or ispredicted to be serviced subsequently by an uncongested beam; and theterminal is predicted to be serviced at some subsequent time by acongested beam). For example, embodiments can compute a congestion mapthat indicates predicted congestion conditions for some or all beams(e.g., spot beams) along the predicted transport path of the terminal.In such instances, a prediction can be made as to future consumptionlikely to be made by user devices associated with the terminal forpre-positionable types of media content items or portions of the items,and that are likely to be serviced by one of the subsequent congestedbeams. For example, if a user is presently streaming a movie via theterminal, a prediction can be made as to whether portions of the movieare likely to be streaming when the terminal is later serviced by acongested beam. When such a future consumption for pre-positionablemedia content is predicted, embodiments can schedule transmission of atleast a portion of the pre-positionable media content over one or moreof the preceding uncongested beams for storage in a local data store incommunication with the terminal. In this way, the media content can bepre-positioned at the terminal prior to the terminal being serviced bythe congested beam.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure is described in conjunction with the appendedfigures:

FIG. 1 shows a simplified diagram of a satellite communications system100, which provides a context for various embodiments.

FIGS. 2A and 2B show simplified diagrams of a multi-beam communicationssystem, which provides a context for various embodiments;

FIG. 3 shows an example of transport crafts traveling along transportpaths through a number of beam coverage areas over a number oftimeframes;

FIGS. 4A-4E show various examples of congestion map representations tofurther illustrate certain functionality in accordance with variousembodiments;

FIG. 5 shows a flow diagram of an illustrative method for providingtransport path-aware quality of service to a mobile terminal along apredicted transport path through a multi-beam communications system,according to various embodiments; and

FIG. 6 shows a flow diagram of another illustrative method for providingtransport path-aware quality of service to a mobile terminal along apredicted transport path through a multi-beam communications system,according to various embodiments.

In the appended figures, similar components and/or features can have thesame reference label. Further, various components of the same type canbe distinguished by following the reference label by a second label thatdistinguishes among the similar components. If only the first referencelabel is used in the specification, the description is applicable to anyone of the similar components having the same first reference labelirrespective of the second reference label.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth toprovide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, onehaving ordinary skill in the art should recognize that the invention canbe practiced without these specific details. In some instances,circuits, structures, and techniques have not been shown in detail toavoid obscuring the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows a simplified diagram of a satellite communications system100, which provides a context for various embodiments. May otherconfigurations are possible having more or fewer components than thesatellite communications system 100 of FIG. 1. In the illustratedembodiment, the satellite communications system 100 includes an aircraft130 in communication with a content server 180 via a satellite 105, agateway 110, and a network 160.

The aircraft 130 can include a mobile terminal 112 to facilitatebidirectional communication with the satellite 105. In the illustratedembodiment, the mobile terminal 112 includes an antenna system 170,transceiver 172, modem 174, network access unit 176, wireless accesspoint (WAP) 178, in-transport media server 125, and terminal cache 127.Although only one aircraft 130 is illustrated in FIG. 1 to avoid overcomplication of the drawing, the satellite communications system 100 caninclude many more aircraft 130 as well as other types of terminals suchas fixed terminals.

The mobile terminal 112 can provide for reception of a forward downlinksignal from the satellite 105 and transmission of a return uplink signalto the satellite 105 to support two-way data communications between userdevices 120 within the aircraft 130 and the satellite 105. The userdevices 120 can include mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, laptops,tablets, netbooks, and the like) such as personal electronic devices(PEDs) brought onto the transport craft 130 by passengers. As furtherexamples, the user devices 120 can also or alternatively includepassenger seat back systems or other devices on the aircraft 130. Theuser devices 120 can communicate with the network access unit 176 via acommunication link that can be wired and/or wireless. The communicationlink can be, for example, part of a local area network such as awireless local area network (WLAN) support by WAP 178. One or more WAPs178 can be distributed about the aircraft 130, and can, in conjunctionwith network access unit 176, provide traffic switching and routingfunctionality; for example, as part of a WLAN extended service set(ESS), etc.

In operation, the network access unit 176 can provide uplink datareceived from the user devices 120 to the modem 174 to generatemodulated uplink data (e.g., a transmit intermediate frequency (IF)signal) for delivery to the transceiver 172. The transceiver 172 canupconvert and then amplify the modulated uplink data to generate thereturn uplink signal for transmission to the satellite 105 via theantenna system 170. Similarly, the transceiver 172 can receive theforward downlink signal from the satellite 105 via the antenna system170. The transceiver 172 can amplify and downconvert the forwarddownlink signal to generate modulated downlink data (e.g., a receive IFsignal) for demodulation by the modem 174. The demodulated downlink datafrom the modem 174 can be provided to the network access unit 176 forrouting to the appropriate user devices 120. The modem 174 can beintegrated with the network access unit 176, or can be a separatecomponent in some examples.

The satellite communications system 100 includes satellite 105. Althoughonly one satellite 105 is illustrated in FIG. 1 to avoid overcomplication of the drawing, the satellite communications system 100 caninclude multiple satellites 105, each satellite providing coverage for aservice area, where service areas for different satellites arenon-overlapping or overlapping. The satellite communications system 100can be any suitable type of satellite system, including a geostationarysatellite system, medium earth orbit satellite system, low earth orbitsatellite system, or combinations thereof. In embodiments, the satellite105 has a number of beams directed at different regions on Earth, wherethe coverage area of each beam may be non-overlapping or overlappingwith one or more other beams. The satellite 105 can for example have oneor more spot beams covering different regions on Earth within theservice area of the satellite 105. As another example, the satellite 105can have one or more wide area coverage beams covering the service areaof the satellite 105. As yet another example, the satellite 105 can havea combination of spot beams and wide area coverage beams.

The satellite 105 provides bidirectional communication between mobileterminal 112 of the the aircraft 130 and one or more gateways 110. Inembodiments, the satellite 105 operates in a multi-spot beam mode,having a number of spot beams each directed at a different region of theearth. This can allow coverage of a relatively large geographical areaand frequency re-use within the service area of the satellite 105.

The gateway 110 is sometimes referred to as a hub or ground station. Thegateway 110 includes an antenna to transmit a forward link uplink signalto the satellite 105 and receive a return downlink signal from thetarget satellite 110. The gateway 110 also includes memory for storageof data and software applications, a processor for accessing data andexecuting applications, and components that facilitate communicationover the network 160 and with the satellite 105. The gateway 110, inconjunction with the mobility management system 140 (discussed below),can also schedule traffic to the aircraft 130 using the techniquesdescribed herein. Alternatively, the scheduling can, in conjunction withthe mobility management system 140, be performed by a scheduler systemwithin other parts of the satellite communications system 100 (e.g., acore node, satellite access node, or other components, not shown).

The gateway 110 can be provided as an interface between the network 160and the satellite 105. The gateway 110 can be configured to receive dataand information directed to the user devices 120 onboard the aircraft130 from a source (e.g., content server 180) accessible via the network160. The gateway 110 can format the data and information and transmit aforward uplink signal to the satellite 105 for subsequent delivery tothe aircraft 130. Similarly, the gateway 110 can be configured toreceive a return downlink signal from the satellite 105 (e.g.,containing data and information originating from the aircraft 130) thatis directed to a destination accessible via the network 160. The gateway110 can also format the received return downlink signal for transmissionon the network 135.

The network 160 can be any type of network and can include for example,the Internet, an IP network, an intranet, a wide area network (WAN),local area network (LAN), a virtual private network (VPN), a virtual LAN(VLAN), a fiber optic network, a cable network, a public switchedtelephone network (PSTN), a public switched data network (PSDN), apublic land mobile network, and/or any other type of network supportingcommunication as described herein. The network 160 can include bothwired and wireless connections as well as optical links.

The satellite 105 can receive the forward uplink signal from the gateway110 and transmit corresponding forward downlink signal to the aircraft130. Similarly, the satellite 105 can receive return uplink signal fromthe aircraft 130 and transmit corresponding return downlink signal tothe gateway 110. The satellite 105 can be configured as a “bent pipe”satellite that performs frequency and polarization conversion of thereceived signals before retransmission of the signals to thedestination. As another example, the satellite 105 can be configured asa regenerative satellite that demodulates and remodulates the receivedsignals before retransmission.

User devices 120 can execute one or more applications that allow theusers onboard the aircraft 130 to communicate with the content server180 to obtain and consume particular media content items in a streaming(or progressively downloaded) manner via the network 160, gateway 110,satellite 105 and mobile terminal 112. The functions of the contentserver 180 can be implemented in hardware, instructions embodied inmemory and formatted to be executed by one or more general orapplication-specific processors, firmware, or any combination thereof.The content server 180 can store, or otherwise provide access to, alibrary of media content items available for selection and subsequentstreaming to the users of the user devices 120. A media content item canbe for example an audio-video item such as a movie or television (TV)show, an audio-only item such as a song, or other type of streamingmedia content. Although only one content server 180 is illustrated inFIG. 1 to avoid over complication of the drawing, the satellitecommunications system 100 may include many content servers 180. Eachcontent server 180 may for example be associated with differentstreaming media content providers.

The users of the user devices 120 can for example be subscribers of astreaming media service provided by the content server 180. As anotherexample, the content server 180 may not require a subscription to accessthe library of media content items. As yet another example, thesubscription to the library may be associated with the aircraft 130.

As described in more detail below, the satellite communications system100 includes a mobility management system 140 to manage and distributethe media content items from the content server 180 to the user devices120 as the aircraft 130 moves through the satellite communicationssystem 100. The mobility management system 140 is configured to providehigh-quality, continuous streaming service to users onboard the aircraft130 using the techniques described herein. The functions of the mobilitymanagement system 140 can be implemented in hardware, instructionsembodied in memory and formatted to be executed by one or more generalor application-specific processors, firmware, or any combinationthereof.

During flight, the aircraft 130 can move “through” multiple beams of thesatellite communications system 100. For example, during a domestic orinternational airplane flight, the aircraft 130, and thus the userdevices 120 of users onboard the aircraft 130, may move through a numberof spot beam coverage areas of the satellite communications system 100(e.g., and may even move between multiple beam coverage areas supportedby multiple satellites). While the aircraft 130 is being serviced by aparticular spot beam while within its spot beam coverage area, thatparticular spot beam may also be servicing demand from many otherterminals (e.g., fixed terminals and/or user devices 120 associated withother mobile terminals 112) in the spot beam coverage area, and thatdemand can differ (potentially by a lot) across the multiple spot beams.

While those user devices 120 are moving through multiple beams of thesatellite communications system 100, users may be consumingcommunications services (e.g., streaming media, otherwise requesting andreceiving content, etc.) from various locations accessible via thenetwork 160. Embodiments can provide a level of quality of service (QoS)to those user devices 120, even as they pass through beam servicecoverage areas that are more or less heavily loaded, referred to hereinas having different levels of congestion. As used herein, a beam isconsidered “congested” when a committed amount of data to becommunicated via the beam over a predetermined period of time (i.e.,“demand”) is greater than or equal to the amount of data the beam iscapable of communicating over that predetermined period of time (i.e.,“supply”), or some offset thereof. For example, a beam can be considered“congested” when the committed data reaches a certain level (e.g., 85%)of the amount of data it is capable of communicating over apredetermined period of time. In some embodiments, portions of a beam'scapacity may be allocated to particular purposes, so that congestion canbe further defined in context of demand versus supply of a particulartype of traffic and/or a particular type of terminal. According to suchdefinitions, a beam can be considered as having available (or excess)capacity when it is uncongested. In some embodiments, one or more levelsof congested and one or more levels of uncongested may be defined basedon different levels of the committed amount of data or other metric.

As described in more detail below, using the techniques described hereinthe mobility management system 140 can predict that an upcoming beamwill be congested during the service timeframe for which the aircraft130 is expected to be within the coverage area of an upcoming congestedbeam. In response to the prediction, the mobility management system 140can then determine media content portions that are likely to be consumedby the user devices 120 when the aircraft 130 is expected to be servicedby the upcoming congested beam. The mobility management system 140 canthen schedule the media content portions for transmission to theaircraft 130 via one or more beams preceding the upcoming congestedbeam. In other words, the mobility management system 140 canpre-position the media content portions for storage local to theaircraft 130, prior to the time when the media content portions willlikely be consumed by the user devices 120. The media content portionscan be received by the mobile terminal 112 of the aircraft 130 andstored within a terminal cache 127 local the aircraft 130, forsubsequent delivery and consumption by the user devices 120 when theaircraft 130 is being serviced by the upcoming congested beam. Thefunctions of the mobility management system 140 can be implemented inhardware, instructions embodied in memory and formatted to be executedby one or more general or application-specific processors, firmware, orany combination thereof.

In FIG. 1, the mobility management system 140 is shown in communicationwith provider-side nodes of the multi-beam communications system 110. Inparticular, the mobility management system 140 is shown in communicationwith the gateway 110 via the network 160. In other embodiments, themobility management system 140 can be directly or indirectly incommunication with a gateway 110, core node, or any other suitable nodeof the provider-side communications infrastructure. In yet otherembodiments, some or all the functionality of the mobility managementsystem 140 can be implemented within consumer-side infrastructure asdescribed in more detail below.

As mentioned above, one or more terminal caches 127 are onboard theaircraft 130 for storing and serving the pre-positioned media contentportions. The terminal cache 127 can be implemented in any suitable waythat provides storage local to the aircraft 130, including as one ormore data servers, solid state memory, hard disk drives, removablestorage, shared storage, etc. In some embodiments, a user device 120 canhave its own terminal cache 127, for example, as a computer-readablemedium coupled with, or integrated into, the user device 120. In otherembodiments, the terminal cache 227 can be coupled with, or integratedinto, in-transport server 125 or other component of mobile terminal 112,which is then in communication with one or more user devices 120. Uponconsumption of a pre-positioned media content portion by the appropriateuser device 120, the pre-positioned media content portion may be purgedfrom the terminal cache 227 so that space can be used to storesubsequent pre-positionable media content.

The in-transport media server 125 can provide commands to the networkaccess unit 176 to manage and distribute media content items from thecontent server 180 to the user devices 120 using the techniquesdescribed herein. In particular, the in-transport media server 125 canprovide for on-board media distribution of the pre-positioned mediacontent portions within the terminal cache 127 to the user devices 120at the appropriate time. The in-transport media server 125 can includeone or more media servers, media storage devices, etc. The functions ofthe in-transport media server 125 can be implemented in hardware,instructions embodied in memory and formatted to be executed by one ormore general or application-specific processors, firmware, or anycombination thereof. In the illustrated embodiment, the in-transportmedia server 125 is shown as a separate device. Alternatively, some orall of the components or features of the in-transport media server 125can be implemented within one or more other components of the mobileterminal 112.

In the illustrated embodiment, the user devices 120 are onboard aircraft130, which is an airplane in this example. Alternatively, the userdevices 120 may be onboard other types of transport craft vehicles suchas a train, bus, cruise ship, other type of aircraft such as ahelicopter, etc.

Embodiments are described in context of multi-beam satellitecommunications systems, which generally include any suitablecommunications environment in which mobile terminal communications canbe serviced by multiple beams as the mobile terminal 112 travels throughthe network. However, reference to satellite architectures is notintended to be limiting, and novel aspects described herein can beimplemented with any one or more suitable communications architecture(s)including any suitable communications links, such as satellitecommunications systems, air-to-ground communication systems, hybridsatellite and air-to-ground communications systems, cellularcommunications systems, etc. Typically, because of the mobile nature ofthe mobile terminal 112, the communications architecture will likelyinvolve at least one wireless communications link. Such wireless linkscan be generally referred to as “carriers.” For the sake of clarity,some embodiments are described with reference to “beams” or “spot beams”in a multi-beam satellite communications system. For example, each spotbeam can service a particular spot beam coverage area, and user devices120 associated with a mobile terminal 112 within the spot beam coverageareas can transmit and receive data via one or more frequency bandsand/or polarizations. However, reference to multi-beam satellitearchitectures is not intended to be limiting, and novel aspectsdescribed herein can be implemented in any suitable multi-carriercommunications system. For example, the carriers can be cells of acellular communications network, and user devices 120 associated withmobile terminal 112 within those cells' coverage areas can transmit andreceive data via one or more cellular frequency bands.

FIG. 2A shows a simplified diagram of a multi-beam satellitecommunications system 200 a, which provides a context for variousembodiments. The satellite communications system 200 a can be anembodiment of the communications system 100 described with reference toFIG. 1 or any other suitable multi-carrier communications system. Theillustrated satellite communications system 200 a includes one or moregateways 110 that provide communications services via one or moresatellites 105 to multiple terminals within the coverage areas of one ormore spot beams 225. Each spot beam 225 can communicate with manyterminals using one or more frequencies, polarizations, etc. Theillustrated single spot beam 225 can represent one of multiple satellitespot beams 225 of the satellite communications system 200 a. Each spotbeam 225 can be allocated a certain amount of capacity (e.g., staticallyor dynamically) with which it can service demands of potentially largenumbers of terminals within its coverage area. Typically, communicationsservice providers can attempt to allocate and manage the “supply”(availability) of capacity provided via a spot beam 225 in a manner thatseeks to meet the demands of customers serviced by the spot beam 225.However, many factors can frustrate those attempts. For example,capacity supply may be impacted by various factors, such asinfrastructure limitations (e.g., each spot beam 225 can only support acertain maximum throughput, bandwidth, etc.) and weather (e.g., raidfade can impact effective capacity); and capacity demand can be impactedby various factors, such as number of terminals being serviced by thespot beam 225 and time of day (e.g., high demand during peak busy hourrelative to other times of day).

Many different types of terminals may be serviced by a particular beam(e.g., spot beam 225). For example, terminals can generally becategorized as “fixed” terminals 235 and “mobile” terminals 112. Fixedterminals 235 generally include any set of customer premises equipmentfor communicating with the satellite 105 (or base station, etc.) thathas a substantially fixed location. For example, a satellite antenna andsatellite modem installed at a customer's residence or place of businesscan be considered as a fixed terminal 235, even though the customer mayinterface with the fixed terminal 235 using a mobile device (e.g., alaptop computer, a tablet computer, a smart phone, etc.).

Mobile terminals 112 can generally include any set of equipment thatpermits communicating with the satellite 105 (or base station, etc.)during movement of the mobile terminal 112. In one context, mobileterminals 112 can include mobile end-user devices that are incommunication with the communications system 200 a using their ownmobile communications infrastructure (i.e., without going through anintermediary). For example, such a mobile terminal 112 can be asatellite-capable smart phone (e.g., a “satphone”), a portable computerwith an on-board (e.g., installed, removable, etc.) satellite modem andantenna, etc. Some such mobile terminals 112 can implement instances ofuser devices 120.

In another context, mobile terminals 112 onboard the aircraft 130 canprovide a shared, mobile infrastructure through which user devices 120can communicate with the communications network while in transit. Onesuch context is illustrated as one or more user devices 120 disposed inaircraft 130 (or other type of vehicle such as a bus, a train, anairplane, a cruise ship, etc.), where the mobile terminal 112 includesan on-board mobile communications infrastructure for communicating withthe communications system 200 a. For example, user devices 120 in such acontext can be a passenger's portable media device (e.g., smart phone,tablet or laptop computer, etc.), an on-board terminal (e.g., a seatbackentertainment system, a ceiling-mounted entertainment system, etc.), orany other type of end-user device that is integrated in, removablycoupled with, or otherwise disposed in context of an aircraft 130; andthe aircraft 130 can be in communication with the satellitecommunications system 200 a via an on-board satellite antenna and modem(e.g., via an in-transport server 125 and/or other components thatprovide various communications-related functions, such as routingfunctions, storage functions, mobility-aware quality of service (QoS)functions described herein, etc.) and/or any other intermediarycommunications infrastructure.

As described above, user devices 120 can move through multiple spotbeams 225, so that the user devices 120 can potentially be serviced bymultiple spot beams 225 of the satellite communications system 200 aover the course of a trip. Embodiments include a mobility managementsystem 140 to facilitate providing a level of quality of service (QoS)to those user devices 120, even as they pass through beam servicecoverage areas that are more or less congested. As illustrated in FIG.2A, the mobility management system 140 can be implemented as one or morecomputational platforms in communication with provider-side nodes of thesatellite communications system 200 a, such as directly or indirectly incommunication with a gateway 110, core node, or any other suitable nodeof the provider-side communications infrastructure. Though not shown,the provider-side communications infrastructure can further be incommunication (e.g., via one or more networks 160) with one or morecontent sources (e.g., content server 180 of FIG. 1), etc. Contentrequests for media content items from the content server 180 canoriginate from consumers (users) via their user devices 120, and can berelayed via consumer-side infrastructure (e.g., infrastructure of amobile terminal 112, an in-transport server 125, aircraft 130, etc.) andthe beam infrastructure (e.g., the satellite 105) to the provider-sideinfrastructure (e.g., satellite gateways 110, core nodes, etc.). At theprovider-side infrastructure, the requests can be processed andoptimized by the mobility management system 140, and the requests can befulfilled with the requested media content items from one or morecontent servers 180.

Processing and optimizing of the content requests by the mobilitymanagement system 140 can exploit usage models and path awareness of theaircraft 130 and the user devices 120 disposed therein. For example,embodiments can identify one or more uncongested beams as preceding oneor more congested beams along a predicted transport path of the aircraft130. A prediction can be made as to future consumption by the userdevices 120 of pre-positionable media content when the aircraft 130 isexpected to be serviced by one of the subsequent congested beams. Forexample, if a user is presently streaming a movie via a user device 120,a prediction can be made as to whether portions of the movie are likelyto be streaming when the user device 120 is later serviced by acongested beam. When such consumption for pre-positionable content ispredicted, embodiments can schedule transmission of at least a portionof the pre-positionable content over one or more of the precedinguncongested beams for storage in a local data store in communicationwith the user device 120. In this way, the content can be pre-positionedat the user device 120 prior to the user device 120 being serviced bythe congested beam.

In the illustrated embodiment, the mobility management system 140includes a transport path modeler system 280, a congestion modelersystem 270, a terminal usage modeler system 260, a mobility-awarescheduler system 250, and a pre-positioning system 263. Some embodimentsmay have different and/or additional systems than those shown in FIG.2A. The functionality of each of the systems of the mobility managementsystem 140 can implemented as one or more computational platforms.Although shown separately in FIG. 2A, in some embodiments some or all ofthe systems of the mobility management system 140 can be implemented aspart of the same computational platform.

Embodiments of the transport path modeler system 280 can predicttransport paths of user devices 120. In some embodiments, one or moreuser devices 120 can be associated at the mobility management system 140with a particular aircraft 130 (e.g., when an user device 120 accessescommunications services via the aircraft 130 infrastructure, it canautomatically be associated therewith). Alternatively, the mobilitymanagement system 140 can communicate with the aircraft 130infrastructure (e.g., the in-transport server 125 or other component ofthe onboard mobile terminal 112), and all the traffic from all the userdevices 120 disposed in the aircraft 130 are seen as (or otherwisetreated as) traffic associated with that aircraft 130. In suchembodiments, the transport path of a user device 120 can be predicted asthe transport path of its associated aircraft 130.

Embodiments of the transport path modeler system 280 can predict thetransport path of the aircraft 130 in any suitable manner. In someembodiments, the transport path modeler system 280 obtains transportdata 285 (e.g., from a public or restricted Internet-based service, orother source) that indicates path-related information for the aircraft130, which can include planned, present, predicted, and/or otherpath-related information associated with a present trip. For example,planned information can include origin and destination locations (e.g.,a “city pair,” coordinates, airport identifiers, etc.) and plannedtravel path, altitude, speed, etc. over the trip. Present informationcan include present (or last-reported) location, altitude, speed, etc.Predicted information can include calculated predictions of path,location, altitude, speed, etc. according to present information,planned information, and/or any other impacting data (e.g., weatherpatterns, statistical data from previous instances of that or othertrips, etc.). In some embodiments (e.g., where a user device 120 is notassociated with an aircraft 130, or the aircraft 130 is not associatedwith any known trip information), the transport data 285 can bedetermined according to any suitable information, such as statisticalinformation, sensor information (e.g., data received from globalpositioning satellite (GPS) sensors, altimeters, accelerometers, beamtriangulation, etc.), etc.

Embodiments of the congestion modeler system 270 can compute acongestion map to indicate congestion conditions for multiple spot beams225 of the satellite communications system 200 a (e.g., or, moregenerally, for any multiple carriers of the multi-carrier communicationssystem) along the predicted transport path. For example, the computedcongestion map can indicate a congestion condition (e.g., congested oruncongested, amount of available capacity, etc.) for a spot beam 225presently servicing the aircraft 130 and/or any number of other spotbeams 225 along the predicted transport path. The congestion conditionsof the spot beams 225 can be computed in any suitable manner. In someembodiments, the computation is based on congestion statistics,provisioning, and/or other macro-level data that does not necessarilyaccount for actual present conditions. For example, based on historicalstatistics and/or allocations, embodiments can estimate levels ofcongestion for each of a number of spot beams 225 at each of a number oftimeframes with some degree of certainty. Such estimates can be used tomap congestion levels for spot beams 225 across some or all of thepredicted transport path, for example, accounting for when (during whichtimeframe(s)) the aircraft 130 is expected to be in the service coveragearea of each particular spot beam 225. In other embodiments, thecomputation of congestion is based on actual feedback information fromthe network. For example, various techniques may be used for testingpresent throughput, data rate, or other link conditions, which candirectly or indirectly indicate a present congestion level. In effect,embodiments of the congestion modeler system 270 can apply various usagepredictions (models, etc.) to data indicating present demand and/orcapacity 255 for one or more spot beams 225 to derive predictions forupcoming demand and/or capacity 265 of one or more spot beams 225. Insome embodiments, the predicted demand and/or capacity 265 can alsoaccount for known upcoming demand, such as scheduled communications,etc.

As described above, predicted transport path information can indicatewhere the aircraft 130 is likely to be at what times. Mapping that datato service coverage areas of the spot beams 225 can effectively indicate“service timeframes,” or timeframes during which the aircraft 130 islikely to be serviced by each beam along its predicted transport path.Further accounting for the congestion map data, a mobility-awarecongestion model 275 can be formulated to indicate a likely congestioncondition for each spot beam 225 (e.g., some or all spot beams 225)along the predicted transport path during a respective service timeframefor that spot beam 225 (i.e., will the spot beam 225 be congested duringthe time it is expected to service the transport craft 130). As usedherein, the mobility-aware congestion model 275 can effectively be anenhanced embodiment of the congestion map.

Embodiments described herein can operate in conditions where thecongestion map (or the mobility-aware congestion model 275) shows atleast one uncongested spot beam 225 preceding at least one congestedspot beam 225 along the predicted transport path (e.g., accounting forservice timeframes). In particular, the computed congestion mapindicates that there is at least a first spot beam 225 (e.g., the beampresently servicing a particular user device 120 or some subsequent spotbeam 225 along the predicted transport path) that is indicated by thecongestion map as uncongested with respect to servicing the user devices120 onboard the aircraft 130, and that there is at least a second spotbeam 225 (subsequent to the first spot beam 225 along the predictedtransport path) indicated by the congestion map as congested withrespect to servicing the user devices 120 onboard the aircraft 130. Insome examples in the description herein, the pre-positioning techniquesare described with respect to a single uncongested beam and a singlecongested beam. More generally, the techniques described herein areapplicable to one or more uncongested beams and one or more congestedbeams along the predicted transport craft of the aircraft.

Embodiments of the pre-positioning system 263 can, based on the contentmedia items that are presently provided from one or more content sources(e.g., content server 180) to the user devices 120 within the aircraft130, identify candidate media content portions for consumption by theuser devices 120 when the aircraft 130 will be serviced by the secondspot beam 225 (i.e., during a service timeframe determined for thesecond spot beam 225). A candidate media content portion is mediacontent that may be consumed by one or more user devices 120 onboard theaircraft 130 during the service timeframe determined for the second spotbeam 225, given the current consumption of the presently provided mediacontent item.

The pre-positioning system 263 can identify, or otherwise become awareof, the presently provided content media items in any suitable manner.For example, the pre-positioning system 263 may obtain information(e.g., metadata) indicating the presently provided media content itemsfrom the content server 180, from the user devices 120, from the mobileterminal 112, other systems of the mobility management system 140,and/or other components of the satellite communications system 200 a.The pre-positioning system 263 may also obtain information (e.g.,metadata such as a timestamp) indicating the individual currentpositions within the provided content media items at which they arepresently being streamed to the user devices 120. For example, thepre-positioning system 263 may receive such information from the contentserver 180 in response to a request. Alternatively, other techniques maybe used to obtain this information.

The pre-positioning system 263 can identify the candidate contentportions in any suitable manner. The candidate media content portionsmay for example be streaming media content available from the samecontent source (e.g., content server 180) as the presently providedmedia content items. In some embodiments, the identifying is done bymatching the presently provided media content item to pre-determinedassociated media content. The candidate media content portions of theassociated media content can then be identified using the currentposition of the presently provided content media item and informationabout the predicted transport path of the aircraft 130 (e.g., the amountof time until the aircraft 130 is expected to be serviced by the secondspot beam 225, the length of the service timeframe of the second spotbeam 225, etc.).

A candidate media content portion may be a subsequent portion to thecurrent position of the presently provided content media item, or may bea portion of a different content item than the provided content mediaitem. As used herein, a “portion” may include some or all of aparticular content media item. As one example, a user can be presentlystreaming a movie via the user device 120 and, based on the timeremaining on the movie, is expected still to be streaming the movieduring the service timeframe of the second spot beam 225. In such acase, the candidate media content portion can be the portion of themovie expected to be consumed during the service timeframe of the secondspot beam 225. As another example, some media is episodic (e.g.,episodes of a television program, podcast, etc.), and consumption of oneepisode can indicate a high likelihood of subsequent consumption forassociated (e.g., subsequent) episodes of the series. Thus, a user canbe presently streaming a given episode of the series via the user device120 and, based on the time remaining on the given episode, is expectedto finish the given episode before the service timeframe of the secondspot beam 225. In such a case, the candidate media content portion canbe the portion of the next episode expected to be consumed during theservice timeframe of the second spot beam 225. As yet another example,some groups of media content items can be determined (e.g., manually, bymachine learning, etc.) to be highly related, such that consumption ofone of the media content item can indicate a high likelihood ofsubsequent consumption of other media content items in the group. Thus,a user can be presently streaming a first media content item of thegroup and, based on the remaining time of the given media content item,is expected to be streaming a second media content item in the groupduring the service timeframe of the second spot beam 225. In such acase, the candidate media content can be the portion of the second mediacontent item expected to be consumed during the service timeframe of thesecond spot beam 225.

The media content associated with the presently provided media contentitem may be determined in any suitable manner. In some embodiments, theassociation can be based at least in part on prior user consumption thatfollowed consumption of the presently provided content item. The prioruser consumption may be for all users of the content server 180, or asubset. The prior user consumption can be determined by analyzingconsumption history patterns stored in log files or other datastructures. For example, the association can be based on a frequency atwhich the associated content was consumed following consumption of thepresently provided media content item. In such a case, consumption thatoccurred more than a certain time period after consumption of thepresently provided media content item may be excluded.

In some embodiments, the association can be based on prior userconsumption associated with mobile terminals 112. Users associated withmobile terminals 112 may have different consumption patterns than usersassociated with fixed terminals. For example, users associated withmobile terminals 112 may be more likely to consume certain types ofmedia content items than users associated with fixed terminals.

In some embodiments, the association can be user-specific. For example,the association may be based on a request queue associated with the userof the user device 120 that is consuming the presently provided mediacontent item (e.g., a queue maintained by a third-party streamingservice, a user-provided list of content desired for consumption duringthe flight, etc.).

The association can also or alternatively be based on other factorsrelated to the particular aircraft 130 such as flight duration, citypair, time of year (seasonality), time of day, and/or other factorsrelated to the media content such as content release schedules,popularity of content, etc.

In some embodiments, the pre-positioning system 263 calculates, orotherwise obtains, individual pre-position scores for the candidatemedia content portions. The individual pre-position scores can becalculated using one or more factors, including for example based on oneor more factors described above for associating with presently providedcontent item. An individual pre-position score of a given candidatemedia content portion can indicate a likelihood (or probability) thatthe given candidate media content portion will be consumed during theservice timeframe of the second spot beam 225. In other words, theindividual pre-position score can indicate the conditional probabilityof consumption of the given candidate media content portion followingconsumption at the current position at the presently provided contentitem. The pre-position score can for example depend at least in partwhere the current position is within the presently provided contentitem. For example, a user that is currently 60 minutes into a movie canhave a higher likelihood of still streaming the movie for the timeperiod from 15-30 minutes in the future, than a user that is currently 3minutes into the movie. In such a case, the pre-position score when 60minutes into the movie can be higher than when 3 minutes into the movie.In some embodiments, the pre-position score can be based in part onwhether the given candidate media content portion can be multi-cast toother opportunistic terminals within the second spot beam 225 during thesecond service timeframe. For example, the given candidate media contentportion may have a higher pre-position score if it can be multi-cast.

The presently provided media content item may for example be comparedagainst a stored lookup table, or any suitable data structure, todetermine one or more candidate content portions for the presentlyprovided content media item. The data structure may be maintained by thecontent server 180, the pre-positioning system 263, or other componentof the satellite communication system 200 a. The storage data structurecan associate the presently provided media content item with itself(e.g., since subsequent portions of the presently provided content mediaitem may be consumed during service by the second spot beam 225). Thestorage data structure can also associate the presently provided mediacontent item with one or more additional media content items that may belikely to be consumed following the presently provided media contentitem.

The pre-positioning system 263 may identify the candidate media contentportions to account for uncertainties related to the service timeframeof the second spot beam 225 due to uncertainty in travel speed, changesin transport schedules, and/or any other suitable factors. For example,a user may be presently streaming a movie and be expected to bestreaming the 1:30 to 1:45 portion of the movie during the servicetimeframe of the second spot beam 225. Because of service time frameuncertainty, the candidate media content portion identified for themovie may be different than the 1:30 to 1:45 portion of the movie, suchas including some of the movie before the 1:30 position and/or includingsome of the movie after the 1:45 portion.

The number of candidate media content portions that are identified foreach currently provided content media item can vary from embodiment toembodiment. In some embodiments, a single candidate media contentportion is identified for each currently provided content media item. Inother embodiments, one or more candidate media content portions can beidentified for each presently provided content media item. For example,if a given currently provided content media item is expected to completestreaming during the service timeframe of the second spot beam 225, afirst candidate media content portion can be the end portion of thegiven presently provided media content item expected to be streamedduring the service timeframe of the second spot beam 225, and a secondcandidate media content portion can be the beginning portion of anothermedia content item predicted to be consumed after the given presentlyprovided media content item. In yet other embodiments, the number ofcandidate media content portions may vary and be different among thecurrently provided content media items.

Embodiments of the terminal usage modeler system 260 can then select aset of media content portions from the candidate media content portionsfor pre-positioning prior to the service timeframe of the second beam225. As described in more detail below, the terminal usage modelersystem 260 can select the set from the candidate media content portionsthat satisfy a pre-position threshold that is based on one or morefactors that can vary from embodiment to embodiment. By using thepre-position threshold, the candidate media content portions most likelyto be consumed can be pre-positioned using available resources, whilethe candidate media content portions that may be less likely to beconsumed are not.

The pre-position threshold can vary from embodiment to embodiment andcan change dynamically. In some embodiments, the pre-position thresholdcan be based at least in part on the available capacity of the firstspot beam 225. In such a case, the pre-position threshold may beinversely proportional to the available capacity, so that more candidatemedia content portions are selected for the set when more capacity ifavailable to use for pre-positioning. The available capacity may bebased on the capacity of the first spot beam 225 available forcommunications with the aircraft 130 (or the user devices 120 onboardthe aircraft 130 collectively or individually) during the first servicetimeframe of the first spot beam 225. The available capacity for theaircraft 130 may for example be based on the difference between theexpected entire amount of data to be communicated via the first spotbeam 225 and the amount of data the first spot beam 225 is capable ofcommunicating during the first service timeframe, or some offsetthereof. Alternatively, the available capacity may be different thanthis. For example, the available capacity may be the available portionof the capacity of the first spot beam 225 that was allocated for aparticular purpose, such as a particular type of traffic, a particulartype of terminal, and/or for each individual aircraft 130 or user device120. In embodiments in which there are multiple uncongested spot beams225 preceding the second spot beam 225, the pre-position threshold maybe based on the available capacity of each of the preceding uncongestedspot beams 225.

Additional or alternative factors may also be used to determine thepre-position threshold. In some embodiments, the pre-position thresholdcan be based at least in part on the length of time until the secondservice timeframe of the second spot beam is expected to begin. In sucha case, the pre-position threshold can be inversely proportional to thislength of time, to reflect the possible lower likelihood of consumptionthe further out in time the consumption will be.

In some embodiments in which the first spot beam 225 is presentlyservicing the aircraft 130, the pre-position threshold may be based atleast in part on the length of time remaining of the first servicetimeframe of the first spot beam 225.

In some embodiments, the pre-position threshold may be based at least inpart on the expected level of congestion of the second spot beam 225during the second service timeframe. In such a case, the pre-positionthreshold may be inversely proportional to the expected level ofcongestion, so that more candidate media content portions are selectedfor the set for higher expected levels of congestion of the second spotbeam 225.

In some embodiments, the pre-position threshold may be based at least inpart on a length of time of the second service timeframe of the secondspot beam 225. In such a case, the pre-position threshold may beinversely proportional to this length of time, to account for the longertime the aircraft 130 will be serviced under congestion.

In some embodiments, the pre-position threshold may be based at least inpart on available capacity of one or more spot beams subsequent to thesecond spot beam 225 along the predicted transport path.

In some embodiments, the pre-position threshold may be based at least inpart on available storage space within the terminal cache 127 local tothe aircraft 130. In such a case, the pre-position threshold mayinversely proportional to the available storage space, so that morecandidate media content portions are selected for the set when morestorage space is available in the terminal cache 127.

The set of media content portions can be a subset of the candidate mediacontent portions. In other words, the number of media content portionsselected to include in the set may be less than the number candidatemedia content portions. For example, the number of candidate mediacontent portions may be twenty (as an example), while the number ofmedia content portions within the set is less than twenty.

A selected media content portion within the set may correspond to ashortened segment of the corresponding candidate media content portion.In other words, the time period of the selected media content portionmay be less than the time period of the corresponding candidate mediacontent portion. In such a case, the selected media content portion canbe the beginning segment, which is more likely to be consumed than alater segment since it is earlier in time. For example, the selectedmedia content portion may be the first ten minute segment of thecandidate media content portion that is 20 minutes long.

A selected media content portion within the set may correspond to alengthened segment of the corresponding candidate media content portion.In other words, the time period of the selected media content may belonger than the time period of the corresponding candidate media contentportion.

In embodiments in which pre-position scores (discussed above) areobtained for the candidate media content portions, the pre-positionthreshold may correspond to a threshold pre-position score. In such acase, the terminal usage modeler system 260 can select some or all ofthe candidate media content portions having pre-position scoresexceeding the threshold pre-position score. In some embodiments, theterminal usage modeler system 260 selects a pre-determined number of thecandidate media content portions having the highest individualpre-position scores. For example, the terminal usage modeler system 260may create a ranked list of the candidate media content portions usingthe individual pre-position scores, and then select the pre-determinednumber that are highest on the list.

Having determined that at least one uncongested spot beam 225 (a firstspot beam 225) will precede at least one congested spot beam 225 (asecond spot beam 225), and having determined that the user devices 120onboard the aircraft 130 are likely to consume the selected set of mediacontent portions during the service timeframe of the congested spot beam225, it can be desirable to pre-fulfill the upcoming consumption usingavailable capacity on the uncongested spot beam 225. Embodiments of themobility-aware scheduler system 250 can schedule transmission via thefirst spot beam 225 of at least a portion of the selected set of mediacontent portions for storage local to the terminal cache 127.

The scheduling can be implemented by the mobility-aware scheduler system250 in a manner suitable to the location of the mobility-aware schedulersystem 250 and the type of communications system. In some embodiments,the mobility-aware scheduler system 250 can communicate with theprovider-side infrastructure of the communications system to allocatecommunications resources (e.g., allocate bandwidth in the first beam225, etc.), establish a logical communications path with an appropriatecontent server 180, request some or all of the selected set of mediacontent portions (e.g., communicate a proxy request for the content onbehalf of the user device 120), and transmit the received media contentportions to the terminal cache 127.

At some subsequent time, when the aircraft 130 is being serviced by acongested spot beam 225, and the user device 120 ultimately makes itsupcoming (implied or explicit) request, the request can be fulfilledlocally by retrieving the appropriate content media portion from theterminal cache 127. In this way, the user device 120 can continue toconsume the content item without relying on receiving the content inreal time, which may be difficult (e.g., technically challenging,resource intensive, etc.) to do from the congested spot beam 225. Anysuitable technique can be used for redirecting the user device 120 torequest the content from the terminal cache 127 instead of from thecongested spot beam 225. In one embodiment, the user device 120 (or thein-transport server 125) can intercept content requests (e.g., as aproxy, etc.), determine whether the requested content is availablelocally, and cause the request to be redirected automatically (e.g.,regardless of the congestion level of the servicing spot beam 225 at thetime of the request).

Some embodiments invoke the pre-positioning functionality in response todetermining availability on the present spot beam 225 (i.e., the spotbeam 225 presently servicing the user device 120). For example, presentcapacity is monitored to detect when a certain amount of capacity ispresently available, in response to which the mobility management system140 can trigger some or all of the computations, determinations, etc.involved in pre-fulfilling an upcoming consumption. In such cases, thecongestion map may consider the present spot beam 225 and one or moreupcoming congested spot beams 225 (e.g., the spot beam 225 likely to beencountered next in the transport path, or any one or more subsequentbeams). Other embodiments invoke the pre-positioning functionality inresponse to determining congestion on an upcoming spot beam 225 (e.g., anext spot beam 225 or any predicted future spot beam 225 along thetransport path). For example, a congestion map can be consulted,dynamically updated, etc. to detect a future congestion condition, inresponse to which a determination can be made as to whether there willbe capacity available on a preceding spot beam 225 (e.g., the present orother preceding spot beam 225), which can trigger the mobilitymanagement system 140 to perform some or all of the computations,determinations, etc. involved in pre-fulfilling an upcoming consumption.Embodiments can also account for congestion maps that include any numberof spot beams 225, and can optimize how and when to pre-positioncontent, accordingly. Suppose, for example, a small amount of capacityis available on the present spot beam 225 (Beam A), a large amount ofcapacity is available on the next spot beam 225 (Beam B), and a thirdspot beam 225 is congested (Beam C). It may be more optimal (orotherwise desirable) to schedule the pre-positionable content fordelivery over Beam B instead of over Beam A, or to pre-position a firstportion of the content over Beam A and a second portion over Beam B,etc.

FIG. 2B shows a simplified diagram of another multi-beam satellitecommunications system 200 b, which provides a context for variousembodiments. The satellite communications system 200 b can be anembodiment of the communications system 100 described with reference toFIG. 1 or any other suitable multi-beam (e.g., multi-carrier)communications system. The illustrated satellite communications system200 b is similar to the satellite communication system 200 a of FIG. 2A,except that the mobility management system 140 is implemented inconsumer-side infrastructures. For example, each of a number of aircraft130 can have a respective instance of the mobility management system 140implemented as part of (or in communication with) its in-transportserver 125. In such embodiments, content requests can originate fromconsumers (users) via their user devices 120, and can be received (e.g.,intercepted, etc.) by the mobility management system 140 implemented atthe aircraft 130 where the user device 120 is disposed. The mobilitymanagement system 140 on the aircraft 130 can process and optimize therequest, which can include communicating information in association withthe request over the beam infrastructure (e.g., the satellite 105) tothe provider-side infrastructure (e.g., satellite gateways 110, corenodes, etc.) for fulfillment with requested content from one or morecontent sources (e.g., content server 180, etc.).

The particular embodiments illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B are notintended to limit other possible embodiments. For example, someembodiments can distribute portions of the mobility management system140 between provider-side and consumer-side infrastructures. Accordingto one such embodiment, content requests from various user devices 120can be received (e.g., intercepted, etc.) and processed by respectivetransport craft-side instances of mobility-aware scheduler systems 250,terminal usage modeler systems 260, and/or other portions of themobility management system 140 implemented at the aircrafts 130 wherethe user devices 120 are disposed. One or more provider-side managementsystems 140 can then process the requests (e.g., per aircraft 130,aggregated across multiple aircrafts 130, etc.) to optimize fulfillmentof the requests with requested content from one or more content sourcesbased on the respective transport data 285 of the aircrafts 130 and/orother information.

Different embodiments of the mobility management system 140 canfacilitate different types of functionality. For example, the locationof the mobility management system 140 can impact which computationtechniques are available and/or used by the congestion modeler system270. For the sake of illustration, implementing the congestion modelersystem 270 at the provider side of the communications system can helpfacilitate the congestion modeler system 270 obtaining data frommultiple spot beams 225 for use in computing the congestion maps, etc.For embodiments in which the congestion modeler system 270 is on theaircraft 130, the congestion modeler system 270 can determine congestionon its own (e.g., by measuring throughput, performing speed tests,etc.), by using stored information (e.g., historical congestion data,etc.), by querying the provider-side infrastructure (e.g., by requestingactual, statistical, and/or other data from the gateway 110 or otherprovider-side nodes), or in other suitable manners.

FIG. 3 shows an example of multiple aircraft 130 traveling alongtransport paths 310 through a number of beam coverage areas 320 over anumber of timeframes 330. For example, FIG. 3 can be a graphicalrepresentation of a congestion map (e.g., a mobility-aware congestionmap 275). As illustrated, the multiple aircraft 130 can be airplanesflying through a number of spot beam coverage areas over the course ofindividual predicted flight paths. The example demonstrates certainfeatures and functionality that can arise in certain instances. Forexample, based on various data, there may be some uncertainty in theflight path prediction, such that one of the airplanes (aircraft 130 a)may follow a path more like transport path 310 a or more like transportpath 310 b. Both transport paths 310 place the aircraft 130 a in a firstbeam coverage area 320 a during a first timeframe 330 a, in a secondbeam coverage area 320 b during a second timeframe 330 b, in a thirdbeam coverage area 320 c during a third timeframe 330 c, and in a fourthbeam coverage area 320 d during a fourth timeframe 330 d. According totransport path 310 b, there is a certain timeframe 330 e during whichthe transport craft 130 a may be serviced by beam coverage area 320 e.Accordingly, some embodiments can optimize QoS provision to user devices120 on the aircraft 130 a (e.g., pre-fulfillment of upcoming consumptionby those user devices 120) in a manner that accounts for the transportpath 310 uncertainty (e.g., by discounting timeframe 330 e inpre-positioning determinations).

The example further demonstrates that boundaries of and between the beamcoverage areas 320 may not be perfectly defined. For example, beamcoverage areas 320 can overlap, and/or performance may decrease (e.g.,there may be lower effective throughput due to various factors) near theedge of a beam coverage area 320 as compared to the center or particularregions within a beam coverage area 320. Accordingly, some embodimentscan optimize QoS provision to user devices 120 on the aircraft 130 in amanner that accounts for the boundary uncertainties in beam coverageareas 320 (e.g., by considering service timeframes only as a portion ofthe time during which an user device 120 is likely to be serviced by aparticular beam).

Additional optimizations can account for uncertainties in travel speed,changes in transport schedules, and/or any other suitable factors. Forexample, referring to FIGS. 2A and 2B, embodiments can monitor airtraffic control data, public transportation location and/or trafficdata, and/or other types of path-related information (e.g., transportdata 285 described above) to dynamically (or periodically, etc.) updatetransport path 310 predictions. Some embodiments can also monitorpresent demand and/or capacity 255, predicted demand and/or capacity265, and/or other congestion-related data to dynamically updatecongestion maps. These updates can be based on information relating to aparticular user device 120, groups of user devices 120 (e.g., all userdevices 120 in a particular transport craft 130 or communicating via aparticular in-transport server 125), and/or any other single or multipleterminals.

Some embodiments can monitor many aircraft 130 (e.g., all commercialflights) to de-conflict and/or otherwise optimize pre-fulfillment ofconsumption among multiple user devices 120. For example, aircraft 130 aand aircraft 130 b are both expected to be in the third beam coveragearea 320 c during at least some of the third timeframe 330 c (asillustrated by the transport path 310 c of transport craft 130 b).Further, each transport craft 130 can have multiple user devices 120disposed thereon. In such an environment, there may be instances wheremultiple, concurrent opportunities arise for pre-fulfilling upcomingrequests associated with multiple user devices 120 and/or multipletransport crafts 130. There may not be enough available capacity on anuncongested beam to pre-fulfill all those upcoming requests beforereaching a congested beam, so that some embodiments can attempt todetermine how best to pre-fulfill the multiple upcoming requests. Someembodiments can handle those opportunities in order of receipt. Forexample, traffic is analyzed in order of receiving requests for content,by querying terminal in a round-robin fashion, or in some other way thateffectively orders receipt of requests. The requests, then, can bepre-fulfilled in order until no available capacity remains (e.g., untilthe previously uncongested beam becomes congested). Other embodimentscan prioritize requests in any suitable manner, for example, by type oftraffic, by availability of compression, by size of request, by class ofrequester (e.g., the requester has paid for premium service, is a firstclass passenger, etc.), etc. Again, the requests can be pre-fulfilleduntil capacity is no longer available. Other embodiments can determinewhether it is more optimal to pre-fulfill larger portions of smallernumbers requests versus smaller portions of larger numbers of requests.In any of these or other embodiments, the optimization andde-conflicting can be performed in accordance with predeterminedoptimization criteria (e.g., minimization functions, etc.). For example,some embodiments can attempt to maximize consumption experience acrossall consumers, while other embodiments can attempt to maximizeconsumption experience for priority consumers and/or priority types oftraffic (e.g., even at the expense of other consumers or traffic types).

FIGS. 4A-4E show various examples of congestion map representations 400to further illustrate certain functionality in accordance with variousembodiments. In each Figure, the congestion map representation 400 showsa transport path 310 over time as passing through a sequence of beamcoverage areas 320 (each transport path 310 arrow is shown below thesequence of beam coverage areas 320 it passes through to avoid obscuringthe congestion map representations 400). Each beam coverage area 320 isshown either as an uncongested beam coverage area 320 (indicated asunshaded with a “U”) or as a congested beam coverage area 320 (indicatedas shaded with a “C”). Each congestion map representation 400 alsoindicates a present location 410 of a aircraft 130 (or of an user device120). The present location 410 can represent the location of thetransport craft 130 at the time when a pre-fulfillment determination(e.g., computation of the congestion map, prediction of an upcomingrequest, etc.) is made.

Turning to FIG. 4A, the congestion map representation 400 a shows thetransport path 310 passing through three beam coverage areas 320 in a“U-C-U” sequence (i.e., the present beam is uncongested, and is followedby a congested beam, then another uncongested beam). In such a scenario,embodiments may determine that pre-positionable content is likely to beconsumed by an user device 120 associated with the transport craft 130during a service timeframe associated with the second (congested) beamcoverage area 320 b. In one variant, some or all of the pre-positionablecontent can be pre-positioned for delivery during the service timeframeassociated with the first beam coverage area 320 a. In another variant,a determination can be made that a first portion of the upcomingrequests will likely be desired for consumption during the servicetimeframe associated with the second beam coverage area 320 b, and asecond portion of the upcoming requests will likely be desired forconsumption only later (e.g., during the service timeframe associatedwith the third beam coverage area 320 b); and the pre-positioning can bescheduled in accordance with the first portion of the upcoming requests.For example, suppose a consumer requests to begin streaming a two-hourmovie at the present location 410; and the transport craft 130 is likelyto be in the present beam coverage area 320 a for another 30 minutes, inthe second beam coverage area 320 b for about an hour (i.e., duringapproximately the 0:30 to 1:30 portion of the movie), and in the thirdbeam coverage area 320 c subsequently (i.e., during approximately the1:30 to 2:00 portion of the movie). One embodiment can attempt topre-position as much of the movie as possible (i.e., from 0:00 to 2:00)in the next 30 minutes (while still in the present beam coverage area320 a). Another embodiment can attempt pre-position as much as possibleof the portion of the movie likely to be serviced after leaving thepresent beam coverage area 320 a (i.e., from 0:30 to 2:00). Anotherembodiment can attempt pre-position as much as possible of the portionof the movie likely to be serviced while in the second beam coveragearea 320 b (i.e., from 0:30 to 1:30). As described above, otherembodiments can pre-position more or less of the content to account forvarious types of uncertainties. For example, one embodiment can attemptpre-position the portion of the movie from 0:20 to 1:40, to account forchanges in transport path 310 (e.g., changes in speed can impact thetime the transport craft 130 actually spends in each beam coverage area320), uncertainties in beam coverage area 320 boundaries, etc. Asdescribed above, in some embodiments, the amount of pre-positionedcontent can depend on a number of additional factors, such as amount ofavailable capacity (e.g., there may only be enough capacity available topre-position a portion of the content, or the pre-positioning may onlybe allowed at all when enough capacity is available), conflicts withother requests (e.g., where the system attempts to maintain QoS for manyterminals with potentially conflicting demands), etc.

Turning to FIG. 4B, the congestion map representation 400 b shows thetransport path 310 passing through four beam coverage areas 320 in a“U-C-C-U” sequence (i.e., the present beam is uncongested, and isfollowed by two congested beams, then another uncongested beam). In sucha scenario, the considerations can be similar to those discussed abovewith reference to FIG. 4A. The two adjacent congested beam coverageareas 320 can be considered as one larger congested beam coverage area320, or separately (e.g., where there are different levels of congestionbeing considered, where considering the additional beam coverage area320 adds appreciable uncertainty, etc.). For example, referring to themovie streaming example above, one embodiment can attempt topre-position as much as possible of the portion of the movie likely tobe serviced only while in the second beam coverage area 320 b (i.e.,from 0:30 to 1:30), effectively not considering the subsequent congestedbeam; while another embodiment can attempt to pre-position as much aspossible of the portion of the movie likely to be serviced while in boththe second and third beam coverage areas 320 b, 320 c (i.e., from 0:30to 2:00).

Turning to FIG. 4C, the congestion map representation 400 c shows thetransport path 310 passing through four beam coverage areas 320 in a“C-U-C-U” sequence. In this scenario, the present beam is congested, butit is followed by a “U-C-U” sequence, like the one described in FIG. 4A.One embodiment can wait until the transport craft 130 reaches the second(first uncongested) beam coverage area 320 b, at which time it canre-evaluate (e.g., re-compute) the congestion conditions of the beams.Other embodiments can proceed to schedule pre-positionable requestspredicted to be serviced in the third (congested) beam coverage area 320c for delivery to (and storage at) the transport craft 130 while it isin the second (uncongested) beam coverage area 320 b.

Turning to FIG. 4D, the congestion map representation 400 d shows thetransport path 310 passing through four beam coverage areas 320, ascomputed when the transport craft 130 is in a first present location 410a (i.e., at time T=1) and when the transport craft 130 is in a secondpresent location 410 b (i.e., at time T=2). At time T=1 (e.g., when afirst request is made), the congestion map indicates a “U-C-U-U”sequence, which can effectively be the same as the scenario discussedwith reference to FIG. 4A. At time T=2 (e.g., when a second request ismade), the congestion map indicates a “U-C-U-C” sequence. Since thetransport craft 130 is already in the second beam coverage area 320 b,this is effectively a “C-U-C” sequence, which can be considered assimilar or identical to the scenario discussed with reference to FIG.4C. The scenarios in FIG. 4D can illustrate additional complexity in theevent that the upcoming request predictions look forward to all fourbeam coverage areas 320. For example, adapting the streaming movieexample above, suppose the requested movie is two hours long, and thetransport craft 130 is predicted to be in each of the four beam coverageareas 320 for thirty minutes. Based on the congestion map computed attime T=1, embodiments may only pre-position content (i.e., from 0:30 to1:00) predicted to be consumed while the transport path is in the secondbeam coverage area 320 b (e.g., the only congested beam). However, whenthe congestion map is recomputed at time T=2, a further determinationcan be made to schedule the last thirty minutes (i.e., from 1:30 to2:00, predicted to be consumed while in congested beam coverage area 320d) when the transport craft 130 is in beam coverage area 320 c. At thesame time (at time T=2), the system may be evaluating a second request,which may have to be de-conflicted with respect to pre-fulfillingremaining first-request content.

Turning finally to FIG. 4E, the congestion map representation 400 eshows the transport path 310 passing through four beam coverage areas320, as computed when the transport craft 130 is in a first presentlocation 410 a (i.e., at time T=1) and when the transport craft 130 isin a second present location 410 b (i.e., at time T=2). At time T=1(e.g., when a first request is made), the congestion map indicates a“U-C-U-U” sequence, which can effectively be the same as the scenariodiscussed with reference to FIG. 4A. At time T=2 (e.g., when a secondrequest is made), the congestion map indicates a “U-C-C-U” sequence.While the T=2 congestion map looks similar to the one in FIG. 4B, thetransport craft 130 at T=2 is already almost in beam coverage area 320b, leaving little time to pre-position additional content. For example,with respect to the first request received at T=1, the updatedcongestion map at T=2 may indicate that an insufficient amount ofcontent was pre-positioned to get through the next two beam coverageareas 320 b, 320 c; and additional pre-positioning may or may not bepossible (e.g., depending on the time remaining in the present beamcoverage area 320 a, the amount of available capacity, etc.). Further,for the second request made at T=2, the system can consider thetransport craft 130 as still in beam coverage area 320 a (so that theremay or may not be enough time to perform a useful amount ofpre-positioning), consider the transport craft 130 as if it were alreadyin beam coverage area 320 b (so that no pre-positioning is invoked),etc.

The various congestion map representations 400 in FIGS. 4A-4E areintended as only illustrative of certain types of scenarios, and are notintended to represent all scenarios. One additional type of scenario hasmultiple uncongested beams (e.g., adjacent to each other or not)preceding one or more congested beam. In such a scenario, someembodiments can spread pre-positioning across those uncongested beams.For example, if it was determined to pre-position twenty minutes ofcontent, a portion of the pre-positionable content can be scheduled fordelivery over each of multiple beams when the transport craft 130 is inthose respective beam coverage areas 320 (e.g., ten minutes in each oftwo uncongested beams).

FIG. 5 shows a flow diagram of an illustrative method 500 for providingtransport path-aware quality of service to a mobile terminal along apredicted transport path through a multi-beam communications system,according to various embodiments. Embodiments of the method 500 can beperformed by any suitable system, such as the management systems 140described with reference to FIGS. 1, 2A, and 2B. Some embodiments of themethod 500 begin by predicting the transport path of the mobile terminalat stage 502. For example, the transport path can be predicted accordingto received origin and destination locations and/or in any othersuitable manner, and can be predicted directly for the mobile terminalor for an associated transport craft, group of mobile terminals, etc.

Embodiments of the method 500 can begin, or continue, at stage 504 bycomputing a congestion map to indicate congestion conditions formultiple beams of the multi-beam communications system along thepredicted transport path. The congestion map can indicate a first beamas uncongested with respect to servicing the mobile terminal during afirst service timeframe, and the congestion map can indicate a secondbeam (subsequent to the first beam along the predicted transport path)as congested with respect to servicing the mobile terminal during asecond service timeframe subsequent to the first service timeframe. Forexample, computing the congestion map can involve computing congestionconditions of each of the first and second beams. The first beam can bethe present beam or any subsequent beam along the predicted transportpath; and the second beam can be directly adjacent to the first beam orany beam subsequent to the first beam along the predicted transportpath.

At stage 508, embodiments can identify candidate media content portionsfor consumption by the mobile terminal during the second servicetimeframe based on one or more media content items presently provided tothe mobile terminal. The candidate media content portions can beidentified using the techniques described herein. As stage 510,embodiments can select a set of media content portions from thecandidate media content portions that satisfy a pre-position threshold.The set of media content portions can be selected using the techniquesdescribed herein. At stage 512, embodiments can schedule transmission ofthe selected set of media content portions to the mobile terminal viathe first beam for storage local to the mobile terminal.

FIG. 6 shows a flow diagram of another illustrative method 600 forproviding transport path-aware quality of service to a mobile terminalalong a predicted transport path through a multi-beam communicationssystem, according to various embodiments. The method 600 is intended tofurther describe certain embodiments and is shown in context of variousstages of method 500 (of FIG. 5) for added clarity. Embodiments canbegin at stage 502 by predicting the transport path of the mobileterminal. The predicting can be performed according to various types oftransport data 285, and can result in a predicted transport path 605 forthe mobile terminal (or transport craft, etc.).

The transport path 605 can be used at stage 504 to compute a congestionmap 610 for multiple beams along the predicted transport path 605. Someembodiments can further compute service timeframes 615 corresponding tobeams of the congestion map 610. For example, the service timeframes 615can indicate which of the beams is likely to be servicing the mobileterminal at which times as it travels along the transport path 605. Insome embodiments, the service timeframes 615 are computed prior tocomputing the congestion map 610, so that the congestion map 610accounts for predicted congestion of beams at their respective servicetimeframes 615. For example, as described above, embodiments can computea mobility-aware congestion model 275 to include information accordingto the predicted transport path 605, the congestion map 610, and theservice timeframes 615.

At stage 604, the congestion map 610 (or the mobility-aware congestionmodel 275) can be used to predict a future beam congestion condition.For example, the congestion map 610 can indicate one or more uncongestedbeams as preceding one or more congested beams along the predictedtransport path 605. As illustrated, some embodiments can determine atstage 612 whether any first beam (“Beam A”) is congested. If not,embodiments can indicate no congestion condition and may terminate themethod 600. If so, such embodiments can further determine at stage 614whether any subsequent beam (“Beam B”) is congested. Again, if not,embodiments may not continue with the remainder of the method 600. Ifso, an appropriate type of congestion condition is assumed fortriggering functionality described herein for pre-fulfillingpre-positionable consumption. Though not illustrated, the determinationcan be made in other suitable manners. For example, the method 600 canfirst determine at stage 614 whether there are any upcoming congestedbeams. If so, the determination can trigger a second determination ofwhether any preceding beam is uncongested at stage 612.

At stage 508, embodiments can identify candidate media content portions620 for consumption by the mobile terminal during the servicing bysecond beam (Beam B). At stage 510, embodiments can select a set ofmedia content portions that satisfy a pre-positon threshold. Theselection can be based at least in part on a terminal usage model 625,which can include, for example, present demand and/or capacity data 255,predicted demand and/or capacity data 265, and/or other data. In someembodiments, the selection can also based on for example, according totraffic type, content source, etc.

At stage 512, some or all of the selected set of media content portions620 can be scheduled for transmission via the one or more beamsidentified as uncongested and preceding the one or more congested beams.The scheduling is performed in a manner that causes the selected set ofmedia content portions 620, when received by the mobile terminal (ortransport craft, etc.) to be locally stored, for example, in a terminalcache. As such, when the mobile terminal is traveling through thecongested beam, it can retrieve pre-positioned content from its localcache, rather than receiving the content in real time from the congestedbeam (which may involve complex and/or resource-intensive techniques tosupport).

The methods disclosed herein include one or more actions for achievingthe described method. The method and/or actions can be interchanged withone another without departing from the scope of the claims. In otherwords, unless a specific order of actions is specified, the order and/oruse of specific actions can be modified without departing from the scopeof the claims.

The functions described can be implemented in hardware, software,firmware, or any combination thereof. If implemented in software, thefunctions can be stored as one or more instructions on a tangiblecomputer-readable medium. A storage medium can be any available tangiblemedium that can be accessed by a computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such computer-readable media can include RAM, ROM, EEPROM,CD-ROM, or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage, or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other tangible medium that can be usedto carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions ordata structures and that can be accessed by a computer. Disk and disc,as used herein, include compact disc (CD), laser disc, optical disc,digital versatile disc (DVD), floppy disk, and Blu-ray® disc where disksusually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce dataoptically with lasers.

A computer program product can perform certain operations presentedherein. For example, such a computer program product can be a computerreadable tangible medium having instructions tangibly stored (and/orencoded) thereon, the instructions being executable by one or moreprocessors to perform the operations described herein. The computerprogram product can include packaging material. Software or instructionscan also be transmitted over a transmission medium. For example,software can be transmitted from a website, server, or other remotesource using a transmission medium such as a coaxial cable, fiber opticcable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), or wirelesstechnology such as infrared, radio, or microwave.

Further, modules and/or other appropriate means for performing themethods and techniques described herein can be downloaded and/orotherwise obtained by suitable terminals and/or coupled to servers, orthe like, to facilitate the transfer of means for performing the methodsdescribed herein. Alternatively, various methods described herein can beprovided via storage means (e.g., RAM, ROM, a physical storage mediumsuch as a CD or floppy disk, etc.), such that a user terminal and/orbase station can obtain the various methods upon coupling or providingthe storage means to the device. Moreover, any other suitable techniquefor providing the methods and techniques described herein to a devicecan be utilized. Features implementing functions can also be physicallylocated at various positions, including being distributed such thatportions of functions are implemented at different physical locations.

In describing the present invention, the following terminology will beused: The singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural referentsunless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example,reference to an item includes reference to one or more items. The term“ones” refers to one, two, or more, and generally applies to theselection of some or all of a quantity. The term “plurality” refers totwo or more of an item. The term “about” means quantities, dimensions,sizes, formulations, parameters, shapes and other characteristics neednot be exact, but can be approximated and/or larger or smaller, asdesired, reflecting acceptable tolerances, conversion factors, roundingoff, measurement error and the like and other factors known to those ofskill in the art. The term “substantially” means that the recitedcharacteristic, parameter, or value need not be achieved exactly, butthat deviations or variations including, for example, tolerances,measurement error, measurement accuracy limitations and other factorsknown to those of skill in the art, can occur in amounts that do notpreclude the effect the characteristic was intended to provide.Numerical data can be expressed or presented herein in a range format.It is to be understood that such a range format is used merely forconvenience and brevity and thus should be interpreted flexibly toinclude not only the numerical values explicitly recited as the limitsof the range, but also interpreted to include all of the individualnumerical values or sub-ranges encompassed within that range as if eachnumerical value and sub-range is explicitly recited. As an illustration,a numerical range of “about 1 to 5” should be interpreted to include notonly the explicitly recited values of about 1 to about 5, but alsoinclude individual values and sub-ranges within the indicated range.Thus, included in this numerical range are individual values such as 2,3 and 4 and sub-ranges such as 1-3, 2-4 and 3-5, etc. This sameprinciple applies to ranges reciting only one numerical value (e.g.,“greater than about 1”) and should apply regardless of the breadth ofthe range or the characteristics being described. A plurality of itemscan be presented in a common list for convenience. However, these listsshould be construed as though each member of the list is individuallyidentified as a separate and unique member. Thus, no individual memberof such list should be construed as a de facto equivalent of any othermember of the same list solely based on their presentation in a commongroup without indications to the contrary. Furthermore, where the terms“and” and “or” are used in conjunction with a list of items, they are tobe interpreted broadly, in that any one or more of the listed items canbe used alone or in combination with other listed items. The term“alternatively” refers to selection of one of two or more alternatives,and is not intended to limit the selection to only those listedalternatives or to only one of the listed alternatives at a time, unlessthe context clearly indicates otherwise. The term “coupled” as usedherein does not require that the components be directly connected toeach other. Instead, the term is intended to also include configurationswith indirect connections where one or more other components can beincluded between coupled components. For example, such other componentscan include amplifiers, attenuators, isolators, directional couplers,redundancy switches, and the like. Also, as used herein, including inthe claims, “or” as used in a list of items prefaced by “at least oneof” indicates a disjunctive list such that, for example, a list of “atleast one of A, B, or C” means A or B or C or AB or AC or BC or ABC(i.e., A and B and C). Further, the term “exemplary” does not mean thatthe described example is preferred or better than other examples. Asused herein, a “set” of elements is intended to mean “one or more” ofthose elements, except where the set is explicitly required to have morethan one or explicitly permitted to be a null set.

Various changes, substitutions, and alterations to the techniquesdescribed herein can be made without departing from the technology ofthe teachings as defined by the appended claims. Moreover, the scope ofthe disclosure and claims is not limited to the particular aspects ofthe process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, means,methods, and actions described above. Processes, machines, manufacture,compositions of matter, means, methods, or actions, presently existingor later to be developed, that perform substantially the same functionor achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding aspectsdescribed herein can be utilized. Accordingly, the appended claimsinclude within their scope such processes, machines, manufacture,compositions of matter, means, methods, or actions.

1. (canceled)
 2. A mobility management system comprising a hardwareprocessor for managing streaming media service to a plurality ofterminals via a multi-carrier communications system, the mobilitymanagement system comprising: a congestion modeler system to compute acongestion map to indicate congestion conditions for a plurality ofcarriers of the multi-carrier communications system along a predictedtransport path of a transport craft vehicle traveling through themulti-carrier communications system, the transport craft vehicle havinga plurality of user devices disposed therein, wherein, in a firstservice timeframe during which the transport craft vehicle will beserviced by a first carrier of the plurality of carriers, the congestionmap indicates the first carrier as uncongested with respect to servicinga first plurality of terminals comprising the transport craft vehicle,and in a second service timeframe during which the transport craftvehicle will be serviced by a second carrier of the plurality ofcarriers, the congestion map indicates that second carrier as congestedwith respect to servicing a second plurality of terminals comprising thetransport craft vehicle, the second service timeframe being subsequentto the first service timeframe; a pre-positioning system to identifycandidate media content portions predicted to be consumed by at leastone of the second plurality of terminals during the second servicetimeframe; and a mobility-aware scheduler system to scheduletransmission of at least some of the candidate media content portions tothe at least one of the second plurality of terminals during the firstservice timeframe for local storage by the at least one of the secondplurality of terminals.
 3. The mobility management system of claim 2,wherein the congestion map indicates the second carrier as congestedwith respect to servicing the second plurality of terminals due at leastto the transport craft vehicle being serviced by the second carrier ofthe plurality of carriers in the second service timeframe.
 4. Themobility management system of claim 2, wherein: the candidate mediacontent portions are portions of one or more media content items; andthe pre-positioning system is to identify the candidate media contentportions predicted to be consumed by at least one of the secondplurality of terminals during the second service timeframe based atleast in part on identifying the one or more media content items asbeing provided to the at least one of the second plurality of terminalsvia the multi-carrier communications system in the first servicetimeframe.
 5. The mobility management system of claim 2, wherein thepre-positioning system is to identify the set of candidate media contentportions based at least in part on a period of time until the secondservice timeframe.
 6. The mobility management system of claim 2, whereinthe mobility-aware scheduler system is to schedule transmission of atleast some of the candidate media content portions to the at least oneof the second plurality of terminals during the first service timeframevia the first carrier of the plurality of carriers.
 7. The mobilitymanagement system of claim 2, wherein the second service timeframe isadjacent to the first service timeframe.
 8. The mobility managementsystem of claim 2, wherein the second carrier of the plurality ofcarriers is different from the first carrier of the plurality ofcarriers.
 9. The mobility management system of claim 2, wherein thesecond carrier of the plurality of carriers is immediately subsequent tothe first carrier of the plurality of carriers along the predictedtransport path.
 10. The mobility management system of claim 2, whereinthe at least one of the second plurality of terminals is the transportcraft vehicle.
 11. The mobility management system of claim 2, whereinthe at least one of the second plurality of terminals is a fixedterminal disposed in a coverage area of the second carrier of theplurality of carriers.
 12. The mobility management system of claim 2,wherein the first plurality of terminals comprises the at least one ofthe second plurality of terminals.
 13. The mobility management system ofclaim 2, wherein the multi-carrier communications system is a multi-beamsatellite communications system, the first carrier being a first beam ofthe multi-beam satellite communications system, and the second carrierbeing a second beam of the multi-beam satellite communications system.14. The mobility management system of claim 2, further comprising: aterminal usage modeler system to select a set of media content portionsfrom the candidate media content portions that satisfy a pre-positionthreshold, wherein the at least some of the candidate media contentportions is the set of media content portions.
 15. The mobilitymanagement system of claim 14, wherein the pre-position threshold isbased at least in part on one or more of: available capacity of thefirst carrier during the first service timeframe, a length of time ofthe second service timeframe, available capacity of one or more carrierspreceding the second carrier along the predicted transport path, oravailable capacity of one or more carriers subsequent to the secondcarrier along the predicted transport path.
 16. The mobility managementsystem of claim 14, wherein the pre-position threshold is based at leastin part on available storage space local to the at least one of thesecond plurality of terminals.
 17. The mobility management system ofclaim 2, further comprising: a transport path modeler system todetermine the predicted transport path of the transport craft vehicle.18. A method for managing streaming media service to a plurality ofterminals via a multi-carrier communications system, the methodcomprising: computing a congestion map to indicate congestion conditionsfor a plurality of carriers of the multi-carrier communications systemalong a predicted transport path of a transport craft vehicle travelingthrough the multi-carrier communications system, the transport craftvehicle having a plurality of user devices disposed therein, wherein, ina first service timeframe during which the transport craft vehicle willbe serviced by a first carrier of the plurality of carriers, thecongestion map indicates the first carrier as uncongested with respectto servicing a first plurality of terminals comprising the transportcraft vehicle, and in a second service timeframe during which thetransport craft vehicle will be serviced by a second carrier of theplurality of carriers, the congestion map indicates that second carrieras congested with respect to servicing a second plurality of terminalscomprising the transport craft vehicle, the second service timeframebeing subsequent to the first service timeframe; identifying candidatemedia content portions predicted to be consumed by at least one of thesecond plurality of terminals during the second service timeframe; andscheduling transmission of at least some of the candidate media contentportions to the at least one of the second plurality of terminals duringthe first service timeframe for local storage by the at least one of thesecond plurality of terminals.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein thecongestion map indicates the second carrier as congested with respect toservicing the second plurality of terminals due at least to thetransport craft vehicle being serviced by the second carrier of theplurality of carriers in the second service timeframe.
 20. The method ofclaim 18, wherein: the candidate media content portions are portions ofone or more media content items; and the identifying is based at leastin part on further identifying the one or more media content items asbeing provided to the at least one of the second plurality of terminalsvia the multi-carrier communications system in the first servicetimeframe.
 21. The method of claim 18, wherein the identifying is basedat least in part on a period of time until the second service timeframe.22. The method of claim 18, wherein the scheduling is via the firstcarrier of the plurality of carriers.
 23. The method of claim 18,wherein the second service timeframe is adjacent to the first servicetimeframe.
 24. The method of claim 18, wherein the second carrier of theplurality of carriers is different from the first carrier of theplurality of carriers.
 25. The method of claim 18, wherein the secondcarrier of the plurality of carriers is immediately subsequent to thefirst carrier of the plurality of carriers along the predicted transportpath.
 26. The method of claim 18, wherein the at least one of the secondplurality of terminals is the transport craft vehicle.
 27. The method ofclaim 18, wherein the at least one of the second plurality of terminalsis a fixed terminal disposed in a coverage area of the second carrier ofthe plurality of carriers.
 28. The method of claim 18, wherein the firstplurality of terminals comprises the at least one of the secondplurality of terminals.
 29. The method of claim 18, wherein themulti-carrier communications system is a multi-beam satellitecommunications system, the first carrier being a first beam of themulti-beam satellite communications system, and the second carrier beinga second beam of the multi-beam satellite communications system.
 30. Themethod of claim 18, further comprising: selecting a set of media contentportions from the candidate media content portions that satisfy apre-position threshold, wherein the at least some of the candidate mediacontent portions is the set of media content portions.
 31. The method ofclaim 18, wherein the pre-position threshold is based at least in parton one or more of: available capacity of the first carrier during thefirst service timeframe, a length of time of the second servicetimeframe, available capacity of one or more carriers preceding thesecond carrier along the predicted transport path, or available capacityof one or more carriers subsequent to the second carrier along thepredicted transport path.
 32. The method of claim 18, wherein thepre-position threshold is based at least in part on available storagespace local to the at least one of the second plurality of terminals.33. The method of claim 18, further comprising: determining thepredicted transport path of the transport craft vehicle.